No orders, please

Working on my DRC Shrug as fast as I can!

So I finished my first week back at Disney and it was fabulous! There were a few hiccups at the beginning but I have backtracked and recovered quickly, hopefully resetting expectations and moving forward with grace. Nothing too detrimental but enough that I was taken aback and decided that certain measures needed to be implemented going for forward. Just things that happen - some of my making, some of the making of others but everyone's perception is their own reality so you do what you can to shift it.

Anywho, I did have one thing happened yesterday that I had never have happen to me before - to my husband, yes, but never to me. People see that I make him stuff all the time and they ask if I will make something for them. His response is so sweet - "She made it because she loves me. She doesn't know you. I can ask but I have seen her list of things that she wants to make so it would be a while. There is a closet full of yarn in our house she has to work through first." He chuckles and people will either push the subject or just move on. If they push, he will usually pass the request on and I will honestly decide if I can or want to do it. Honestly though, in all my years of crafting, I have never been directly approached and I was taken aback by my knee jerk reaction to it. Here, let me set the scene for you...

Scene: Me knitting during a break. Fellow new hire cast member walks by and stops with a look a pure delight on her face.

CM: Ooooo, you knit?
Me: (raises face to CM and smiles while hands work feverishly) I do.
CM: Do you take orders? (eyebrows raised while mind races with ideas and requests).
Me: I do not (still smiling and feverishly knitting).
CM: What? Why not! (face no longer elated but suddenly cloudy and cross).
Me: It then becomes work and that takes the joy out of it. It becomes something that I "have" to do instead of something that I "want" to do. I do knit for people, out of love, but never for money.
CM: (flounces away, totally put out).
Me: (shrugs and continues to regain peace and shed anxiety through stitching).

End scene!

Yeah, I am not even embellishing. That is exactly what happened. I have never been asked by a stranger if I 'take orders'. Why would I take orders? If you bake, do you take orders? If you sew, do you take orders? If you draw, sing or play an instrument, do you take orders? Why does my hobby have to all of a sudden become a business - and what gives you the right to be upset when I say no?

This is what I do for my anxiety, for pleasure, for mindless activity - basically, just to live. I knit. I crochet. I do other things as well but they aren't as portable. It is something that I do that brings me joy. I have no idea where the mindset came that such things have to now turn a profit. I do it for the simple act of doing it. The act of doing it is what I love - and the fabulous pile of FOs that I create which I either keep, donate to charity, or gift to people I love.

If someone has a baby, I craft for them. If someone has a tragic event in their life, I craft for them. If someone gets married, I craft for them. It is such a personal experience and present that I don't ever do it for profit. That would tarnish, for me, what I find beautiful about it.

So no, I don't take orders... but I will teach you so you can make whatever idea you had swimming in your head. My lunch is at 7 pm, meet me in the break room... you'll be glad you did.